A company cannot slander Linux. Slander is the oral communication of false statements that injure a person's reputation. As Linux is not a person, slander doesn't apply. Also, Linus would not have a great case for the guy at SCO slandering him because of the nature of the statement. Stating that you are considering bringing a lawsuit against someone is not slander since it is probable that this statement is true, and hard to prove otherwise.
I would have to beg to differ. Firstly, SCO has directly slandered RMS and others in the Free Software movement with their statements, particularly their misquotes. They have directly slandered IBM (which is a corporation and therefore a person). They have indirectly slandered Linus yesterday, for I quote:
Think about if I was the CIO of a company and I'm going to be running my business on an operating system that has an intellectual property foundation that, by almost everyone's admission, is built on quicksand. There is no mechanism in Linux to ensure [the legality of] that intellectual property of the source code being contributed by various people.
...
based on the research that we have done, we have identified specific Unix System V code for which we have ownership rights that have ended up in Linux against our wishes. There is inappropriate intellectual property in Linux. The development process has no one that is ensuring that inappropriate code is not getting into Linux. All that's there is an honor system, and obviously there are a few, at least, that have broken that honor.
Also:
How many lines of code in the Linux kernel are a direct copyright violation? It's very extensive. It is many different sections of code ranging from five to 10 to 15 lines of code in multiple places that are of issue, up to large blocks of code that have been inappropriately copied into Linux in violation of our source-code licensing contract. That's in the kernel itself, so it is significant. It is not a line or two here or there. It was quite a surprise for us.
Now remember first that this is in the context of directly suing Linus. They are talking directly about code which is being committed to the kernel, which is Linus' job as maintainer of the Linux kernel. They are publicly claiming not only that Linus' methods are negligent, but that this idea is widely accepted and patently obvious. They are directly attacking his skills as an engineer and his reputation as an honest man.
Reading what Sontag had to say pissed me off because firstly it was a lie and secondly it was a direct attack on Linus' character and skills. If that is not slander, I do not know what is.
That said, I do not expect Linus to sue anyone, because
1) He is just not a suing kind of guy
2) He is not a hothead like me;)
3) He is pretty wise in his dealings
Linus knows to keep his mouth shut and not be baited by SCO because he knows he is in a fight for his life, but also that SCO is going to hang themselves if we can be patient. Besides, all indications so far are that SCO has nothing. Linus, as the quintessential engineer, is waiting to see what the problem really is so he can fix it. Until SCO "produces the body" (GOD, can there be a habeus corpus for a situation like this? Too bad IANAL!) we don't know what they are talking about. By SCO's own admission, neither do they at this point.
As for RMS, well, damnit, many slashdotters have claimed he has no reputation to smear, and that is really very sad. I don't think he deserves half the hell people give him, and I think if he has lost reputation it is only because he has suffered many slings and arrows and continued to go on with his Holy Quest.
The "What if you get sued?" argument is just like the "Who are you going to sue?" argument. There is really and truly no difference in these situations between what happens when you are a user of Open Source (or Free) Software or Closed Software. In fact it could just as easily be argued that you can get into more trouble with Closed Source Software. I think in the end, though , the pros and cons w/r/t these scenarios balance out fairly evenly, whereas Free Software offers significant advantages to the consumer.
How fast the kernel developers could render their code irrellevant would not change the value of the code because SCO could reasonably argue that the kernel developers were highly motivated to quickly change it on account of the lawsuit, not because SCO's code itself was next to worthless.
[Bugs Bunny voice]Hold on a minute there, Pocahontas![/Bugs Bunny voice] If SCO's legal grievance is solely based on trade secrets, two things come into play. Firstly, a trade secret, once revealed, is not a secret anymore. People who use that knowlege are immune to suit. However, the person who reveals a secret is liable for their action and may be disciplined by the company they work for if that company is the one whose secrets they are revealing, and sued if they have signed a contract (which anyone getting access to trade secrets does nowadays). (As many posters have pointed out, the person who reveals the recipe for Coke has to answer to the Coca Cola Company, but no one else need worry about it).
Under no circumstances would the revelation of a trade secret in the code of Linux affect Linux itself or its users and distributors any more than the users and distributors of OpenCola would have to "answer to the Coca Cola Company."
I mean, if your only evidence is copyrighted text no one else has seen that exists in a computer file (or a printout you made yesterday), that is irrefutable evidence, right?
The case rests on the assertion that IBM has indeed seen the code, so clearly IBM will be able to produce the code they have been given in their defense if SCO pulls something like that.
As Senior Vice President and General Manager of the SCOsource division, Sontag is responsible for overseeing the development and licensing of SCO's immense intellectual property holdings.
Immense intellectual property holdings? Like what? The big turds they call products?
Sontag earned a bachelor's degree in Information Management from Brigham Young University.
What? No MBA? And as much as I hate to perpetuate a stereotype... BYU, eh? hmmm. Yes, things that make you go hmmm...
SCO just announced that they'll show the alleged offenses in the Linux kernel to "industry analysts, respected press people, and other industry leaders" under NDA. I want to know *who* (names) will be invited. Will anybody from the open source movement be invited? If so, who? Might I suggest Bruce Perens or Eric Raymond?
Considering one of the conditions of this NDA is that upon viewing said evidence one can *never again* speak on the validity (or lack thereof) of SCO's claims, I would bet SCO would suggest them as well.
Yes, people keep saying that, but the problem is no one has pointed to an entire distribution being distributed. As far as I can tell, they are distributing patches which may not contain SCO IP. (What am I saying? Of course it doesn't!).
If they were still distributing Caldera you might have a leg to stand on, but then wasn't Caldera one of the few distributions that does not distribute itself on an FTP site (because SCO wanted $600 for it).
The GPL also precludes adding conditions to distribution. It also specifically states (and I am tired of pasting it, read the GNU.org site or one of the 5000 copies of the GPL on your linux computer) that any code which contains misappropriated IP is automagically no longer GPL unless the holder of the IP grants a no-strings-attached free beer and speech license. So unless SCO does that, if there really is SCO IP in there the code is no longer legal.
This is why if they are judged correct we will have to rewrite the 10-15 lines of code in question:P.
And Microsoft could just as easily claim something like, "Well, that code was produced by Joe (aside: and he always was a little shifty), but we fired him years ago."
You left out the part where Joe got a temp job with the RIAA writing threatening letters to college professors. Then again Joe was a dropout, too... and probably involved with al qaeda.
Wrong... The fact that the Linux kernel could be so quickly modified as to make their code superfluous would not void or diminish whatever amount that SCO had a legitimate claim to for their trade secrets becoming exposed in the first place. Really. I know this.
You know what, I am relaly getting tired of this circular SCO logic. Everytime someone points out a hole in their argument, they claim the argument is about something else. And of course many slashdotters have been dragged into the same arguments.
What the hell is this lawsuit about? Trade Secrets? Copyrights? Licenses? Contracts? Patents? Trademarks? DMCA violations? Cracking? Butt Cheese? Crap! The slashdotters who pointed out SCO changes their story every day are absolutely right. In fact the only consistency I can see is that SCO vaguely claims "IP" is infringed and that it is not the kind of IP the reporter interviewing them points out could not be involved.
Someone awhile back on slashdot pointed out that the term "Intellectual Property" was being used to blur the very real distinctions between the various types of intellectual property, the way they work, the manner in which they are protected, etc. And it is leading to a very real crisis, especially in the computing world. I am beginning to agree, and this case may turn out to be the one which brings it to the world's attention by making it patently obvious (no pun intended;) ).
I'm wondering if SCO's lawyers are for real or if they only play ones on TV.
My guess is they are laymen representing themselves. Perhaps slashdot trolls. Anyway you remember the old lawyer's axiom about that... "Anyone who represents themselves in court has a fool for a client."
Ironically, the better the quality of the code (that is, the closest to the mathematically ideal expression of the idea the code reaches), the less protection it gets.
Holy crap, you just revealed the trade secret of why Microsoft and SCo have such crappy code! It is so people can't copy it legally!:)
He didn't word it really well, but that was his "minimum." He said it ranged from "10-15" lines of code to "Huge blocks of code." I'm imagining that it's these theoretical "huge blocks" that has his panties in a bunch.
You are giving him far too much credit. 15 was not the minimum. Five lines was the minimum. From the article:
How many lines of code in the Linux kernel are a direct copyright violation? It's very extensive. It is many different sections of code ranging from five to 10 to 15 lines of code in multiple places that are of issue, up to large blocks of code that have been inappropriately copied into Linux in violation of our source-code licensing contract. That's in the kernel itself, so it is significant. It is not a line or two here or there. It was quite a surprise for us.
Of course it was not a surprise for slashdotters, who were quick to point out that much of this code was released in textbooks and is commonly reused as it is a reference. What has been weighing in my mind throughout this is the slashdot article which appeared when SCO first bought the UNIX code. Their first act was to release it all on the internet for free (as in beer at the very least). I don't recall a license for use, but some slashdotter recently gave a link to the code SCO was still offering for download.
Now all of this code is ancient as hell, but anyone who has worked as a developer in a UNIX company will tell you there is some pretty hoary code in, say, AIX, and I would imagine in SCO's products as well. After all, why rewrite it if it still works? Since when AT&T sued the BSD people it came out that code from BSD had been misappropriated and put into UNIX, and lots of bsd stuff ended up in Linux, it is not inconceivable we are talking about the same chunks of code here.
UNIX code has been shared between UNIXs and UNIX-alikes from the beginning, and there have always been people who trued to own it all aftre the genie was out of the bottle and basically pissed in the pool. That is the history of UNIX in a nutshell. Until we get these corporate freaks who don't even create the code off our back we can expect a repeat of this story every few years.
Yes, IBM has invested [Carl Sagan Voice]Billions and Billions of Dollars in Linux. Linux has been IBM's main thrust in the last few years. There is even a Linux compatability layer in AIX now (for all we know, Linux may ultimately supplant AIX once IBM has ported all their technology to Linux), and they are selling Linux on IBM hardware like there is no tomorrow. They know they can make money on the hardware and services, and services made them more money than anything else in the past few years.
Can anybody tell me if this patent really applies to any computer, or if it's just limited to systems based on x86 ATX-motherboards? In other words: does even Apple have to pay these royalties? What about laptop-manufacturers or systems containing motherboards in VIA's mini-ITX format?
I never heard of such a thing, but if this is true it would be foolish for IBM to try to make Apple pay them since they have prior art. The Apple I was a motherboard in a case (made of wood) before the IBM PC was even thought of. Then again, one has to wonder why they did not dig up the altair, though perhaps the altair did not have a motherboard as such. Could some old hands weigh in on this?
Lets say you have a priceless family heirloom. Someone steals it, locks it in a box, and gives it to you to sell at a garage sale. Then he goes to your garage sale. Firstly he unlocks the box to show you your family heirloom, then offers the $5 that you asked for. You agree to the sale, and now he states that he legitimately owns. Is the sale legitimate?
Damnit when are you slashdotters going to learn the fallacy of using anaologies in arguments? Oh well, I may as well jump in. Same story as above, except the heirloom is a pocket watch. A thief takes your pocket watch and puts it in a box full of other people's pocket watches which you happen to have in your basement. You decide to sell the box full of pocket watches for $5 at your garage sale and the thief buys it.
You had the key the whole time, and could have gone through the box full of watches to look for your watch, but you had no reason to think your watch was in there; in fact you were reasonably certain it was in its normal place in your safe.
Is the sale of the watch legitemate? Judge Judy decides!
Your letter to 1,500 end-user companies outlining your claim was vague. What is it that you want from these companies? The one thing that we specifically want from those 1,500 companies that we directly sent those letters to is for them to not take our word on the warning that we sent... but to seek an opinion of their legal counsel as to the issues that we raised.
Hmm, could this be a bid to make more money for lawyers who have been hit by hard times? "Go see your lawyer so he can protect you from ours!"
How is it that Microsoft can get a license, and essentially get rid of its worry, and the other users cannot? Microsoft is not using Linux. So the scope of any issues they may have are not as related to the specific Unix intellectual property they were using in their product or wanted to be able to use in their product in the future. It's a very well-defined set of intellectual property they were interested in licensing.
This is an outright lie. It is fairly well known that Microsoft uses Linux and BSD internally as well as Solaris, sometimes for testing (perhaps for interoperability, which is considered a bug by Microsoft) and sometimes for tasks which cannot be accomplished by Windows.
Why didn't you act earlier? This move seems to arise with SCO's declining fortunes. We just announced our second quarter, and our financials are in very good position. The company is profitable. It is the first time in the history of the company, in almost seven years of existence, that it has been profitable. The point is we're really only recently seeing significant moves by many players, specifically IBM, to come out and state that they are moving wholesale to Linux.
IBM made the announcement in 1999-2000 that it was moving to Linux. Even before that it was patently obvious. The clue hammer fell hard in 2000 with the "Peace, Love, Linux" campaign. So this guy is saying he just noticed now? Or is he saying "well, now that Microsoft paid us money, we have a profit and can pay our lawyers." After all, the settlement was at least $120 million and then there were licensing fees. We could easily be talking about hundreds of millions of dollars here.
The claim that Microsoft needed to pay SCO because of Services for Unix is ridiculous as well. They got all that from BSD which is unencumbered. Or are SCO saying (and Microsoft admitting) that they stole code from Linux or Unix for that piece of NT/2000?
It is a play on all those US commercials where someone comes on and says "I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV. And that is why you should heed my medical advice when I tell you chugging aspirin like there is no tomorrow is just the right thing to do, yessiree! But only if it comes from the company that paid me to say that..."
So, monospace, aliased white text on a black background is illegal unless you pay royalties?
No, but light grey characters printed on paper in response to characters typed on a tty are illegal unless you pay The Telephone Company. If the two are connected and there is not a computer between them you have to pay The Typewriter Company.:)
If you read his book(_Just_For_Fun_), he talks about his swedish ancestry and the origin of his name. Actually it is a fascinating book. I would never have thought Linux started originally because Linus wanted a decent terminal emulator so he could get at his email...:)
I love this attitude. Sounds just like the bit from "A Few Good Men": 'I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom I provide, then questions the manner in which I provide it.'
Problem is, as a citizen of the United States, it's not my privilege but my duty to question the manner in which my security is provided, because ultimately the people who do so work for me. It's my responsibility. I vote fo rit and I pay for it.
The other fun part is the way that many (note: not all, and from what I've seen not most) military types hold civilians in contempt. If you don't think we're worth defending, why the hell are you doing the job? Besides which, if you love our country you've got to love the civilians. A body made up entirely of immune cells isn't going to last too long...
I have often said that the most cherished right US Citizens have is the right to bitch. We can say whatever we want, right or wrong. It is the job of US Military personnel to protect that right, even when I am bitching about them. That often makes what they do a thankless job (especially since they do not decide whose country they end up flying to and who they have to kill when they get there).
At the same time, it is the right of every US soldier to have and express whatever opinion they wish as well, and they have the particular distinction in many cases of having directly paid for that right.
Voltaire said "I may not agree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it." I believe in that, too, but these people really do it. They may also end up in some war in which they should not be involved, they may kill civilians and surrendering soldiers, but at the end of the day they are also responsible to protect this country if it is attacked. They are also the only people capable of ensuring the Constitution is truly respected, as it is their sworn duty to protect the Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic, and they therefore would be responsible for disobeying and resisting should some president become an outright dictator.
But to directly address the issue you brought up, I took that sentiment as just another example of the support vs users war. IT personnel often hold users in contempt because they do not understand what they (IT) go through to provide the systems the users work on (and destroy themselves, then ask them to be fixed, then blame IT and the computers). To me, the problem of the military is similar, but a bigger game with higher stakes. I don't blame them at all for feeling the way they do.
Look at how the average veteran is treated in this country, where they come home and they are told not to wear their uniforms because they might be attacked; they are made to feel ashamed for what they do. Look on the streets and see how many of the homeless are ex-soldiers. Where is the monument to the WWII veterans who fought a war against tyrants who would have utterly destroyed the earth, and gave our country the power it now enjoys (and sometimes abuses)?
If the military did not feel we were worth defending they would not do their job at all. Or worse, they would take over and kill us all. Obviously the majority feel we are worth protecting whether they like us or not, and the individual soldier, by not quitting, likewise is making that statement.
It is right for us to question the actions of our government. It is our duty as citizens. It is right for us to apply scrutiny to the things done in our name by those who serve. But it makes perfect sense that those people should also feel they deserve some gratitude and credit for trying and for making difficult choices you and I have refused to deal with at all.
But Shakespeare often put his own beliefs in the words of his characters. He was a playwright, after all. Except for the sonnets, all of the "Shakespeare said" things we know are spoken by his characters. Even some of the sonnets seem to be written in another voice. "First, we kill all the lawyers" was an applause line, thrown in to get a cheer out of the crowd. The fact that it gets quoted so often reflects the fact that we all feel that way at one time or another. Probably Shakespeare did, too.
Considering (as I recall from my public school education) much of what we know of Shakespeare today comes from the court documents of the various lawsuits in which he was involved, I would say yes. It would seem he was constantly being screwed by lawyers.
Slashdot Mirror
A company cannot slander Linux. Slander is the oral communication of false statements that injure a person's reputation. As Linux is not a person, slander doesn't apply. Also, Linus would not have a great case for the guy at SCO slandering him because of the nature of the statement. Stating that you are considering bringing a lawsuit against someone is not slander since it is probable that this statement is true, and hard to prove otherwise.
I would have to beg to differ. Firstly, SCO has directly slandered RMS and others in the Free Software movement with their statements, particularly their misquotes. They have directly slandered IBM (which is a corporation and therefore a person). They have indirectly slandered Linus yesterday, for I quote :
Think about if I was the CIO of a company and I'm going to be running my business on an operating system that has an intellectual property foundation that, by almost everyone's admission, is built on quicksand. There is no mechanism in Linux to ensure [the legality of] that intellectual property of the source code being contributed by various people.
based on the research that we have done, we have identified specific Unix System V code for which we have ownership rights that have ended up in Linux against our wishes. There is inappropriate intellectual property in Linux. The development process has no one that is ensuring that inappropriate code is not getting into Linux. All that's there is an honor system, and obviously there are a few, at least, that have broken that honor.
Also:
How many lines of code in the Linux kernel are a direct copyright violation? It's very extensive. It is many different sections of code ranging from five to 10 to 15 lines of code in multiple places that are of issue, up to large blocks of code that have been inappropriately copied into Linux in violation of our source-code licensing contract. That's in the kernel itself, so it is significant. It is not a line or two here or there. It was quite a surprise for us.
Now remember first that this is in the context of directly suing Linus. They are talking directly about code which is being committed to the kernel, which is Linus' job as maintainer of the Linux kernel. They are publicly claiming not only that Linus' methods are negligent, but that this idea is widely accepted and patently obvious. They are directly attacking his skills as an engineer and his reputation as an honest man.
Reading what Sontag had to say pissed me off because firstly it was a lie and secondly it was a direct attack on Linus' character and skills. If that is not slander, I do not know what is.
That said, I do not expect Linus to sue anyone, because
1) He is just not a suing kind of guy
2) He is not a hothead like me ;)
3) He is pretty wise in his dealings
Linus knows to keep his mouth shut and not be baited by SCO because he knows he is in a fight for his life, but also that SCO is going to hang themselves if we can be patient. Besides, all indications so far are that SCO has nothing. Linus, as the quintessential engineer, is waiting to see what the problem really is so he can fix it. Until SCO "produces the body" (GOD, can there be a habeus corpus for a situation like this? Too bad IANAL!) we don't know what they are talking about. By SCO's own admission, neither do they at this point.
As for RMS, well, damnit, many slashdotters have claimed he has no reputation to smear, and that is really very sad. I don't think he deserves half the hell people give him, and I think if he has lost reputation it is only because he has suffered many slings and arrows and continued to go on with his Holy Quest.
Funny thing that you mention SQL Server, since Microsoft was found to have misappropriated IP in its development...
The "What if you get sued?" argument is just like the "Who are you going to sue?" argument. There is really and truly no difference in these situations between what happens when you are a user of Open Source (or Free) Software or Closed Software. In fact it could just as easily be argued that you can get into more trouble with Closed Source Software. I think in the end, though , the pros and cons w/r/t these scenarios balance out fairly evenly, whereas Free Software offers significant advantages to the consumer.
How fast the kernel developers could render their code irrellevant would not change the value of the code because SCO could reasonably argue that the kernel developers were highly motivated to quickly change it on account of the lawsuit, not because SCO's code itself was next to worthless.
[Bugs Bunny voice]Hold on a minute there, Pocahontas![/Bugs Bunny voice] If SCO's legal grievance is solely based on trade secrets, two things come into play. Firstly, a trade secret, once revealed, is not a secret anymore. People who use that knowlege are immune to suit. However, the person who reveals a secret is liable for their action and may be disciplined by the company they work for if that company is the one whose secrets they are revealing, and sued if they have signed a contract (which anyone getting access to trade secrets does nowadays). (As many posters have pointed out, the person who reveals the recipe for Coke has to answer to the Coca Cola Company, but no one else need worry about it).
Under no circumstances would the revelation of a trade secret in the code of Linux affect Linux itself or its users and distributors any more than the users and distributors of OpenCola would have to "answer to the Coca Cola Company."
I mean, if your only evidence is copyrighted text no one else has seen that exists in a computer file (or a printout you made yesterday), that is irrefutable evidence, right?
The case rests on the assertion that IBM has indeed seen the code, so clearly IBM will be able to produce the code they have been given in their defense if SCO pulls something like that.
Two things from that blurb caught my eye:
As Senior Vice President and General Manager of the SCOsource division, Sontag is responsible for overseeing the development and licensing of SCO's immense intellectual property holdings.
Immense intellectual property holdings? Like what? The big turds they call products?
Sontag earned a bachelor's degree in Information Management from Brigham Young University.
What? No MBA? And as much as I hate to perpetuate a stereotype... BYU, eh? hmmm. Yes, things that make you go hmmm...
You forgot "look out bullow" [sic]
SCO just announced that they'll show the alleged offenses in the Linux kernel to "industry analysts, respected press people, and other industry leaders" under NDA. I want to know *who* (names) will be invited. Will anybody from the open source movement be invited? If so, who? Might I suggest Bruce Perens or Eric Raymond?
Considering one of the conditions of this NDA is that upon viewing said evidence one can *never again* speak on the validity (or lack thereof) of SCO's claims, I would bet SCO would suggest them as well.
Yes, people keep saying that, but the problem is no one has pointed to an entire distribution being distributed. As far as I can tell, they are distributing patches which may not contain SCO IP. (What am I saying? Of course it doesn't!).
If they were still distributing Caldera you might have a leg to stand on, but then wasn't Caldera one of the few distributions that does not distribute itself on an FTP site (because SCO wanted $600 for it).
The GPL also precludes adding conditions to distribution. It also specifically states (and I am tired of pasting it, read the GNU.org site or one of the 5000 copies of the GPL on your linux computer) that any code which contains misappropriated IP is automagically no longer GPL unless the holder of the IP grants a no-strings-attached free beer and speech license. So unless SCO does that, if there really is SCO IP in there the code is no longer legal.
This is why if they are judged correct we will have to rewrite the 10-15 lines of code in question :P.
And Microsoft could just as easily claim something like, "Well, that code was produced by Joe (aside: and he always was a little shifty), but we fired him years ago."
You left out the part where Joe got a temp job with the RIAA writing threatening letters to college professors. Then again Joe was a dropout, too... and probably involved with al qaeda.
Ford didn't invent the car. Ford popularlized the mass assembly line, but he didn't invent the car. -- Funksaw.
I thought Ford invented the assembly line.
Wrong... The fact that the Linux kernel could be so quickly modified as to make their code superfluous would not void or diminish whatever amount that SCO had a legitimate claim to for their trade secrets becoming exposed in the first place. Really. I know this.
You know what, I am relaly getting tired of this circular SCO logic. Everytime someone points out a hole in their argument, they claim the argument is about something else. And of course many slashdotters have been dragged into the same arguments.
What the hell is this lawsuit about? Trade Secrets? Copyrights? Licenses? Contracts? Patents? Trademarks? DMCA violations? Cracking? Butt Cheese? Crap! The slashdotters who pointed out SCO changes their story every day are absolutely right. In fact the only consistency I can see is that SCO vaguely claims "IP" is infringed and that it is not the kind of IP the reporter interviewing them points out could not be involved.
Someone awhile back on slashdot pointed out that the term "Intellectual Property" was being used to blur the very real distinctions between the various types of intellectual property, the way they work, the manner in which they are protected, etc. And it is leading to a very real crisis, especially in the computing world. I am beginning to agree, and this case may turn out to be the one which brings it to the world's attention by making it patently obvious (no pun intended ;) ).
I'm wondering if SCO's lawyers are for real or if they only play ones on TV.
My guess is they are laymen representing themselves. Perhaps slashdot trolls. Anyway you remember the old lawyer's axiom about that...
"Anyone who represents themselves in court has a fool for a client."
Ironically, the better the quality of the code (that is, the closest to the mathematically ideal expression of the idea the code reaches), the less protection it gets.
Holy crap, you just revealed the trade secret of why Microsoft and SCo have such crappy code! It is so people can't copy it legally! :)
He didn't word it really well, but that was his "minimum." He said it ranged from "10-15" lines of code to "Huge blocks of code." I'm imagining that it's these theoretical "huge blocks" that has his panties in a bunch.
You are giving him far too much credit. 15 was not the minimum. Five lines was the minimum. From the article:
How many lines of code in the Linux kernel are a direct copyright violation? It's very extensive. It is many different sections of code ranging from five to 10 to 15 lines of code in multiple places that are of issue, up to large blocks of code that have been inappropriately copied into Linux in violation of our source-code licensing contract. That's in the kernel itself, so it is significant. It is not a line or two here or there. It was quite a surprise for us.
Of course it was not a surprise for slashdotters, who were quick to point out that much of this code was released in textbooks and is commonly reused as it is a reference. What has been weighing in my mind throughout this is the slashdot article which appeared when SCO first bought the UNIX code. Their first act was to release it all on the internet for free (as in beer at the very least). I don't recall a license for use, but some slashdotter recently gave a link to the code SCO was still offering for download.
Now all of this code is ancient as hell, but anyone who has worked as a developer in a UNIX company will tell you there is some pretty hoary code in, say, AIX, and I would imagine in SCO's products as well. After all, why rewrite it if it still works? Since when AT&T sued the BSD people it came out that code from BSD had been misappropriated and put into UNIX, and lots of bsd stuff ended up in Linux, it is not inconceivable we are talking about the same chunks of code here.
UNIX code has been shared between UNIXs and UNIX-alikes from the beginning, and there have always been people who trued to own it all aftre the genie was out of the bottle and basically pissed in the pool. That is the history of UNIX in a nutshell. Until we get these corporate freaks who don't even create the code off our back we can expect a repeat of this story every few years.
Yes, IBM has invested [Carl Sagan Voice]Billions and Billions of Dollars in Linux. Linux has been IBM's main thrust in the last few years. There is even a Linux compatability layer in AIX now (for all we know, Linux may ultimately supplant AIX once IBM has ported all their technology to Linux), and they are selling Linux on IBM hardware like there is no tomorrow. They know they can make money on the hardware and services, and services made them more money than anything else in the past few years.
Can anybody tell me if this patent really applies to any computer, or if it's just limited to systems based on x86 ATX-motherboards? In other words: does even Apple have to pay these royalties? What about laptop-manufacturers or systems containing motherboards in VIA's mini-ITX format?
I never heard of such a thing, but if this is true it would be foolish for IBM to try to make Apple pay them since they have prior art. The Apple I was a motherboard in a case (made of wood) before the IBM PC was even thought of. Then again, one has to wonder why they did not dig up the altair, though perhaps the altair did not have a motherboard as such. Could some old hands weigh in on this?
Lets say you have a priceless family heirloom. Someone steals it, locks it in a box, and gives it to you to sell at a garage sale. Then he goes to your garage sale. Firstly he unlocks the box to show you your family heirloom, then offers the $5 that you asked for. You agree to the sale, and now he states that he legitimately owns. Is the sale legitimate?
Damnit when are you slashdotters going to learn the fallacy of using anaologies in arguments? Oh well, I may as well jump in. Same story as above, except the heirloom is a pocket watch. A thief takes your pocket watch and puts it in a box full of other people's pocket watches which you happen to have in your basement. You decide to sell the box full of pocket watches for $5 at your garage sale and the thief buys it.
You had the key the whole time, and could have gone through the box full of watches to look for your watch, but you had no reason to think your watch was in there; in fact you were reasonably certain it was in its normal place in your safe.
Is the sale of the watch legitemate? Judge Judy decides!
That is more like what is happening here.
(Of course, I also should have tested this or used the implementation of quick sort I found on my HD a few minutes ago.)
What, the one you h4x0r3d from SCO's ftp server? ;)
Your letter to 1,500 end-user companies outlining your claim was vague. What is it that you want from these companies? The one thing that we specifically want from those 1,500 companies that we directly sent those letters to is for them to not take our word on the warning that we sent ... but to seek an opinion of their legal counsel as to the issues that we raised.
Hmm, could this be a bid to make more money for lawyers who have been hit by hard times? "Go see your lawyer so he can protect you from ours!"
How is it that Microsoft can get a license, and essentially get rid of its worry, and the other users cannot? Microsoft is not using Linux. So the scope of any issues they may have are not as related to the specific Unix intellectual property they were using in their product or wanted to be able to use in their product in the future. It's a very well-defined set of intellectual property they were interested in licensing.
This is an outright lie. It is fairly well known that Microsoft uses Linux and BSD internally as well as Solaris, sometimes for testing (perhaps for interoperability, which is considered a bug by Microsoft) and sometimes for tasks which cannot be accomplished by Windows.
Why didn't you act earlier? This move seems to arise with SCO's declining fortunes. We just announced our second quarter, and our financials are in very good position. The company is profitable. It is the first time in the history of the company, in almost seven years of existence, that it has been profitable. The point is we're really only recently seeing significant moves by many players, specifically IBM, to come out and state that they are moving wholesale to Linux.
IBM made the announcement in 1999-2000 that it was moving to Linux. Even before that it was patently obvious. The clue hammer fell hard in 2000 with the "Peace, Love, Linux" campaign. So this guy is saying he just noticed now? Or is he saying "well, now that Microsoft paid us money, we have a profit and can pay our lawyers." After all, the settlement was at least $120 million and then there were licensing fees. We could easily be talking about hundreds of millions of dollars here.
The claim that Microsoft needed to pay SCO because of Services for Unix is ridiculous as well. They got all that from BSD which is unencumbered. Or are SCO saying (and Microsoft admitting) that they stole code from Linux or Unix for that piece of NT/2000?
Nor Do I Play One On Slashdot.
It is a play on all those US commercials where someone comes on and says "I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV. And that is why you should heed my medical advice when I tell you chugging aspirin like there is no tomorrow is just the right thing to do, yessiree! But only if it comes from the company that paid me to say that..."
So, monospace, aliased white text on a black background is illegal unless you pay royalties?
No, but light grey characters printed on paper in response to characters typed on a tty are illegal unless you pay The Telephone Company. If the two are connected and there is not a computer between them you have to pay The Typewriter Company. :)
If you read his book(_Just_For_Fun_), he talks about his swedish ancestry and the origin of his name. Actually it is a fascinating book. I would never have thought Linux started originally because Linus wanted a decent terminal emulator so he could get at his email... :)
Absolute baloney from a computer newbie using his first XP box. Windows 9x had many blue screens of death, and they were more commonly seen there than on NT. The quote in grandparent's sig is actually one that appeared in many blue screens of death.
I love this attitude. Sounds just like the bit from "A Few Good Men": 'I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom I provide, then questions the manner in which I provide it.'
Problem is, as a citizen of the United States, it's not my privilege but my duty to question the manner in which my security is provided, because ultimately the people who do so work for me. It's my responsibility. I vote fo rit and I pay for it.
The other fun part is the way that many (note: not all, and from what I've seen not most) military types hold civilians in contempt. If you don't think we're worth defending, why the hell are you doing the job? Besides which, if you love our country you've got to love the civilians. A body made up entirely of immune cells isn't going to last too long...
I have often said that the most cherished right US Citizens have is the right to bitch. We can say whatever we want, right or wrong. It is the job of US Military personnel to protect that right, even when I am bitching about them. That often makes what they do a thankless job (especially since they do not decide whose country they end up flying to and who they have to kill when they get there).
At the same time, it is the right of every US soldier to have and express whatever opinion they wish as well, and they have the particular distinction in many cases of having directly paid for that right.
Voltaire said "I may not agree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it." I believe in that, too, but these people really do it. They may also end up in some war in which they should not be involved, they may kill civilians and surrendering soldiers, but at the end of the day they are also responsible to protect this country if it is attacked. They are also the only people capable of ensuring the Constitution is truly respected, as it is their sworn duty to protect the Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic, and they therefore would be responsible for disobeying and resisting should some president become an outright dictator.
But to directly address the issue you brought up, I took that sentiment as just another example of the support vs users war. IT personnel often hold users in contempt because they do not understand what they (IT) go through to provide the systems the users work on (and destroy themselves, then ask them to be fixed, then blame IT and the computers). To me, the problem of the military is similar, but a bigger game with higher stakes. I don't blame them at all for feeling the way they do.
Look at how the average veteran is treated in this country, where they come home and they are told not to wear their uniforms because they might be attacked; they are made to feel ashamed for what they do. Look on the streets and see how many of the homeless are ex-soldiers. Where is the monument to the WWII veterans who fought a war against tyrants who would have utterly destroyed the earth, and gave our country the power it now enjoys (and sometimes abuses)?
If the military did not feel we were worth defending they would not do their job at all. Or worse, they would take over and kill us all. Obviously the majority feel we are worth protecting whether they like us or not, and the individual soldier, by not quitting, likewise is making that statement.
It is right for us to question the actions of our government. It is our duty as citizens. It is right for us to apply scrutiny to the things done in our name by those who serve. But it makes perfect sense that those people should also feel they deserve some gratitude and credit for trying and for making difficult choices you and I have refused to deal with at all.
But Shakespeare often put his own beliefs in the words of his characters. He was a playwright, after all. Except for the sonnets, all of the "Shakespeare said" things we know are spoken by his characters. Even some of the sonnets seem to be written in another voice. "First, we kill all the lawyers" was an applause line, thrown in to get a cheer out of the crowd. The fact that it gets quoted so often reflects the fact that we all feel that way at one time or another. Probably Shakespeare did, too.
Considering (as I recall from my public school education) much of what we know of Shakespeare today comes from the court documents of the various lawsuits in which he was involved, I would say yes. It would seem he was constantly being screwed by lawyers.